Date: 22nd May, 1455
Time: started - between 10:00am & midday; duration - 30 mins
Location: in the streets of St. Albans (NW of London)
Weather: not recorded
Factions: York vs Lancaster
Victor: York
Troops/inventory:York - 3,000 - 7,000 men-at-arms (including archers, pikemen and billmen), cannons
Lancaster - 2,000 - 3,000 men-at-arms (including pikemen and
billmen)
Injuries/fatalities of interest: York - none
Lancaster:
Total slain/injured: approx. 100 slain (mostly Lancastrian soldiers)
Interesting bit: The Duke of Somerset fought for the Lancastrians that day. During the dying moments of the battle, he fought his way to refuge in an establishment called the Castle Inn, on the corner of Shropshire Lane.
Assuming that he would be executed if captured alive by the Yorkists, he and his retainers decided to fight it out to the end. Learning that the defenders outside the inn had been slain, he led a final charge into the
street. Somerset killed four men before finally being slain by an axeman.
As in all great war legends, the irony of the Duke's life lay in the manner of his death. Somerset had always pleaded with the King never to summon him to Windsor Castle, as a fortune teller had told him he would die in
the shadow of a castle. This story may have been 'helped along' by the chroniclers of the time, but it certainly adds an ironic bent to the Duke of
Somerset's death in front of the Castle Inn.